From Flutura Açka
“When I went to F. SH., the head of the dormitory, a woman who loved me and I loved her very much, when she saw my red slippers, she said: Flutura, take it off quickly, these are not allowed”!
Memorie.al / It was the morning of April 11, 1985, when for the first time after those months of the first year of economics, the grandson of Sofo Lazri, whose name I do not remember at this moment, came gloomily to class. The circles around his eyes were red and the moles were not visible due to the sadness that had overtaken him. We had him as a liaison with the Central Committee, our student class had the great ‘privilege’, not to pray for any news from the dome, but the news came to us by itself; certainly for those who cared about that news.
I don’t know much about myself, but a friend of mine reminds me of those years when I just laughed and liked pastries. He only said that; we would soon learn that Albania would be broken in two, from the pain it would learn. Around 11 o’clock or so, the news was officially announced and of course that day’s lesson went.
As secretary of the group that I was (more of an organizational grade and nature), I had the task of organizing the group, for the nationwide consolation that should go to the Central Committee, from every class, organization, office, corn field with cubes and without cube, construction site, furnace, mines, flower garden, garden and clinic.
The whole of Albania was doing the national historical consolation and was assuring the party that it was by its side, those heavy days of our cfilima. In short, even in, under the supervision and care of our beloved grandson, we did the best we could, put our names, all in a row (don’t put it if you wanted!), signed and started. Amazingly, I have a copy of it in my personal archive, with all the nonsense it entails.
And due to the fact that I was the leader of the group, my name was marked among the students who would have the ‘privilege’ of wearing the crowns, the crowns of others. I don’t actually remember which crown I wore with someone else, but maybe that of the Democratic Front, since I wasn’t in the first ranks.
The crown was heavy and difficult to carry along the boulevard, but until that day, when it was pouring with rain and the chronology marked it as nature’s tears towards our fate, I had some vicissitudes, not so small if you go back in time.
The next day, the director of building 15, of the “Student City” where we housed the economic students, called me to the office and asked me about the dress.
“Go dress as you will dress that day and come at this and that hour, I will see if you are suitable”. Although I sewed my own clothes with a Chinese ‘Butterfly’ they had in the house, I didn’t have black clothes (forced code for that day) as she hated them.
So I begged the girls of the room – and there were not a few of us, but about fifty young women – and somehow I contrived. When I went to F.SH., the head of the dormitory, a woman who loved me and I loved her very much, she looked at me and when she saw my red slippers, she said: “Butterfly, take it off quickly, these are not allowed”! I told her that I didn’t have any, and that none of my roommates had my foot size or shoes that fit.
He ordered me to go home, to Elbasan, and to be there the next day “dead or alive”, with black shoes. So I traveled by train that evening and the next day on the way back, for hours and hours, because of the train delays of those years and the great overcrowding that had happened to the wagons, from grief-stricken Albanians who were coming to pay their respects and were close to the party those days, that the external enemy was celebrating.
Maybe through neighbors or relatives, and black shoes were made, so my red shoes did not witness that funeral day, when people fell from the ligía on the sidewalk and when our wreaths followed the ball where the meaning was kept until then of our breathing. The next day, no one would know how to breathe after being separated from our leader.
Those days in the evening, in the small TV room of building 15, about 800 girls gathered and cried like hell. Some were further away, but if you stayed in the room, you could end up in jail the next day.
The enemy that day was easily understood, and the party, in addition to the oil, was eager to see who was celebrating that day. The screams of those days in that small hall, is the thing that has never been erased from my memory, the spark pierced the walls, which maybe that day, had started to shake.
A few days later I returned to the pleasure of my red shoes and the spring that color promised for myself and the Albanians, some of whom had perhaps not yet folded the dark ones.Of course, the sworn ones have not forgotten even today to mourn, to visit the widow who is leading the life of princesses and who has spokeswomen and journalists who have not been able to understand from which guillotine we escaped on April 11, 1985. Memorie.al
